Thursday, September 08, 2016

Vitter's shadow

Some of the more compelling sport to be had during last year's governor's race was watching how many Republicans were willing to be seen at David Vitter campaign events. The supposition at the time was that a Governor Vitter would be in position back one of them as the successor to the Senate seat he would vacate. Turns out Vitter is leaving anyway. But not exactly by the way he had hoped.

In the book, Murder in the Bayou — which will be released by Simon & Schuster’s Scribner imprint next week — investigative journalist Ethan Brown
cites three anonymous sources claiming Republican Rep. Charles Boustany
was a “client” of some of the murdered sex workers known as the “Jeff
Davis 8.” The book also reveals that the motel where some of the victims
did their sex work was run by Martin Guillory, a field representative
for Boustany who goes by the nickname “Big G.”

Boustany, who is
now running for U.S. Senate in Louisiana, denied the allegations to the
author through a spokesman. Guillory, who ran the Boudreaux Inn from the
late 1990s through the end of 2004, told the author he’d met “one or
two” of the sex workers, as well as Frankie Richard, their pimp. But
Guillory said he was unaware of any criminal activity taking place at
the motel.

Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were
discovered in the canals and swamps surrounding the small town of
Jennings in Louisiana’s Jefferson Davis Parish. The victims, whose
murders remain unsolved, became known in the national media as the “Jeff
Davis 8.”